Method and apparatus for providing audio advertisements in a computer network

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for providing audio advertisements in a computer network enables Web sites to deliver audio advertisements that cannot be bypassed by a visitor. More particularly, an advertising or sponsoring Web site receives a request from at least one user for delivery of a user-selected Web page associated with the Web site. The Web site selects at least one audio advertisement from a plurality of audio advertisements for delivery to the user in conjunction with the user-selected Web page. The Web site then delivers the audio advertisement to the user via the network in a format that precludes the user from controlling the manner of playback of the audio advertisement.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/464,782, filed May 12, 2009 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FORPROVIDING AUDIO ADVERTISEMENTS IN A COMPUTER NETWORK,” which is acontinuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/893,362, filed Jun. 25,2001 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING AUDIO ADVERTISEMENTSIN A COMPUTER NETWORK,” which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) toU.S. Provisional Application No. 60/213,396, filed Jun. 23, 2000, U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/213,827, filed Jun. 23, 2000, U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/225,943, filed Aug. 17, 2000; and U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/226,108, filed Aug. 17, 2000, whichapplications are specifically incorporated herein, in their entirety, byreference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providingaudio advertisements in a computer network. More specifically, thisinvention relates to a method and apparatus for delivering customizedaudio advertisements to users in a manner such that users are notrequired to perform any action nor are they enabled to control the audiostream provided by these audio advertisements.

2. Description of the Related Art

For many years, the global retail market has been characterized as amarket in which physical products are sold from physical locations. Inrecent years, however, this dynamic has undergone a significant changein response to the increasing popularity of the Internet and inparticular with the increasing popularity of advertising on theInternet. It should be appreciated that the Internet is defined here asa collection of interconnected (public and/or private) networks linkedtogether by a set of standard protocols (such as TCP/IP and HTTP) toform a global, distributed network. While this term is intended to referto what is now commonly known as the Internet, it is also intended toencompass variations that may be made in the future, including changesand additions to existing standard protocols.

Many Internet websites are supported by business models that relyheavily, if not entirely, on revenue generated from the sale ofadvertising. A host website devoted to the presentation of news,commentary, product/service descriptions and other forms of content mayfurther include advertisements in the form of graphic or textual bannerscovering a portion of the displayed page. A visitor to the website canobtain additional information regarding the product or service shown inthe advertisement by clicking on a portion of the advertisement. Thisaction generally causes a separate page to be delivered to the visitorcontaining the additional information. These host websites are paid bysponsors according to the number of clicks made by website visitors onthese sponsored advertisements. Therefore, a decline in the number ofclicks a particular sponsor advertisement receives directly translatesto a loss in revenue for the host website. As the Internet becomes morepopular and commercial, these websites are having an increasinglydifficult time selling advertisements due to a substantial reduction inmost website visitors' willingness to click on these advertisements. Aprimary reason for this reluctance is the simple fact that websiteadvertisements are now so common that website visitors are no longerenticed to click on them. Thus, as website visitors become more aware ofparticular types of advertisements they are much more inclined to ignorethem.

As the Internet becomes more popular, and as Internet users gain accessto the Internet at increasing modem speeds and bandwidth levels,multimedia content on the Internet is becoming more prevalent. Thisdevelopment means that a wider variety of new advertising modalities arebecoming available. In response to this availability, many websites arenow attempting to add audio advertisements to their online advertisementrepertoire; however, there are drawbacks with the way in which currentaudio advertisements are implemented on the Internet. One problem isthat website visitors must launch an audio streaming application inorder to listen to an audio program. If the visitor chooses not tolaunch the audio streaming application, the audio advertisement will notbe performed. Even if the visitor does launch the audio streamingapplication, the visitor can still bypass the audio advertisementaltogether by simply scrolling ahead of the advertisement using thecontrol buttons of the audio streaming application. Thus, the visitorcan effectively thwart the delivery of the audio advertisement to thedetriment of the host website and the sponsor.

A need in the industry therefore exists for a way to enable websites todeliver audio advertisements that cannot be bypassed by the visitor.More specifically, the audio advertisements should not require thevisitor to perform any action to enable delivery of the audioadvertisement, and the visitor should not be able to otherwise controlthe manner of delivery of the audio advertisement.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method and apparatus for providing audio advertisements in a computernetwork enables Web sites to deliver audio advertisements that cannot bebypassed by a visitor. More particularly, an advertising or sponsoringWeb site receives a request from at least one user for delivery of auser-selected Web page associated with the Web site. The Web siteselects at least one audio advertisement from a plurality of audioadvertisements for delivery to the user in conjunction with theuser-selected Web page. The Web site then delivers the audioadvertisement to the user via the network in a format that precludes theuser from controlling the manner of playback of the audio advertisement.

In an embodiment of the invention, the advertising or sponsoring Website provides software code that gives users alternative methods to linkto other websites during any one of these audio advertisements. Inparticular, the software code may include “shortcut” commands thatautomatically forward the user to a sponsor Web page once that shortcutcommand is executed. The user's input device may therefore be empoweredin such a way that multiple input combinations may yield a plurality ofdifferent results.

In another embodiment of the present invention, participating Web sitesmay cross-promote each other within the computer network. Theadvertisers are compensated according to the number of audioadvertisements that particular advertiser has presented to users forparticular sponsors. Credits may, for example, be exchanged for audioadvertisements on the Web site hosted by the sponsor corresponding toaudio advertisement for which these credits were received.

In another embodiment, a database comprising the web session tendenciesof all visitors to the computer network is maintained. It should beappreciated that tendency data is stored within this database in orderto determine which audio advertisements are best suited for particularusers. In particular, these tendencies are associated with correspondingusers in order to generate query strings used to search through anadvertisement database. Particular audio advertisements are thenselected according to a weighting algorithm that determines which searchresults are more likely to yield favorable results in response to thoseaudio advertisements selected.

A more complete understanding of a method and apparatus for providingaudio advertisements in a computer network will be afforded to thoseskilled in the art, as well as a realization of additional advantagesand objects thereof, by a consideration of the following detaileddescription of the preferred embodiment. Reference will be made to theappended sheets of drawings, which will first be described briefly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an apparatus for providing audioadvertisements in a computer network in accordance with the invention;and

FIG. 2 is a flow chart outlining the operation of advertiser computersystems according to a preferred embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The present invention is directed towards a method and apparatus forproviding audio advertisements in a computer network. More specifically,the present invention is directed towards a method and apparatus forproviding audio advertisements without requiring that the user take anyaction to initiate the audio delivery or performance. In a preferredembodiment of the invention, audio advertisements are played in arandomly accessible series such that a user is exposed to advertisementstailored to their interests. In particular, the present invention allowsfor audio advertisements to be played in a manner such that eachsubsequent advertisement is based on user reactions to prior audioadvertisements. It should be appreciated that these audio advertisementsmay include advertisements that promote various other websites in acomputer network, Moreover, a method and apparatus is described forcross-promoting participating websites in a computer network such thatadvertiser computer systems receive credits for playing audioadvertisements for other websites directly from their own website.Within such embodiments, the advertiser responsible for playing an audioadvertisement shall receive credit for playing that advertisement fromthe appropriate sponsor. In the detailed description that follows, itshould be appreciated that like element numerals are used to describelike elements illustrated in one or more of the figures.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a block diagram is illustrated of a wide areanetwork employing a method and apparatus according to an embodiment ofthe invention. It is anticipated that the present invention operateswith a plurality of computers that are coupled together within a widearea network, such as the Internet 20, or other communications network.As illustrated, an advertiser computer system 10 is shown to communicatewith a sponsor computer system 30 and user computer systems 40 via theInternet 20. It should be appreciated that user computers 40 may includeany type of computing device that allows a user to interactively browsewebsites, such as a personal computer (PC) that includes a Web browserapplication 42 (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer T or NetscapeCommunicator™). Suitable user computers 40 equipped with browsers 42 areavailable in many configurations, including handheld devices (e.g.,PalmPilot™), personal computers (PC), laptop computers, workstations,television set-top devices, multifunctional cellular phones, and soforth.

It should be further appreciated that the advertiser computer system 10is defined here as a computer system hosting websites on which sponsorshave placed an audio advertisement to promote certain products andservices of the sponsor, while the sponsor computer system 30 is hereinreferred to as those computer systems with websites for which audioadvertisements on the advertiser computer system 10 are designed topromote. The wide area network may include many such advertiser computersystems and sponsor computer systems. While a single user computersystem 40 is shown in FIG. 1, it should be appreciated that many suchuser computer systems may be in communication with the advertisercomputer system 10 and/or sponsor computer system 30 simultaneously.

The advertiser computer system 10 is comprised of an applicationsprocessor 12 coupled to a counter 13, a Web server 14 connected to anHTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) documents database 15, and a searchengine 16 connected to a visitor history database 17 and anadvertisement database 19. Similarly, the sponsor computer system 30 iscomprised of an applications processor 32 coupled to a Web server 34connected to an HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) documents database 35.As is generally known in the art, search engines (such as search engine16) typically incorporate a database engine, such as a SQL Server™engine from Microsoft Corporation or Oracle™ database engine, as part oftheir architecture. It is also well known in the art that such searchengines typically perform searches by operating on a string ofcharacters, known as a “query string.” A query string is coded accordingto a set of rules determined by the database engine and/or a userinterface between the database engine and the user. As used herein, a“query” is broader than a “query string,” denoting both the query stringand the search logic represented by the query string, whereas “querystring” refers only to a string of characters, symbols, or codes used todefine a query, As is also generally known in the art, Web servers (suchas Web servers 14 and 34) access a plurality of Web pages, distributableapplications, and other electronic files containing information ofvarious types respectively stored in HTML document databases 15 and 35.As a result, Web pages may be viewed on various user computers 40; forexample, a particular Web page or other electronic file may be viewedthrough a suitable application program residing on a user computer 40,such as a browser 42, or by a distributable application provided to theuser computer 40 by Web server 14 or 34.

It should be further appreciated that a user identifies a desired Webpage for delivery to the user computer 40 by communicating an HTTP(Hyper-Text Transport Protocol) request from the browser application 42.The HTTP request includes the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of thedesired Web page, which may correspond to an HTML document stored in theHTML documents databases 15, 35. The HTTP request is routed to the Webservers 14, 34 via the Internet 20. The Web servers 14, 34 then retrievethe HTML document identified by the URL, and communicate the HTMLdocument across the Internet 20 to the browser application 42. The HTMLdocument may be communicated in the form of plural message packets asdefined by standard protocols, such as the Transport ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

It should be noted that other architectural embodiments of the inventionmay also be implemented. Within one such alternative embodiment, onlythe sponsor computer system 30 may be comprised of the sub-componentsdescribed above while the advertiser computer system 10 is comprised ofonly an applications processor 12 coupled to a Web server 14 connectedto an HTML documents database 15. It should also be noted that, sincesponsor computer systems 30 may also be comprised of audioadvertisements and since some advertiser computer systems 10 may also besponsors, a sponsor computer system 30 may simultaneously be consideredan advertiser computer system 10 in some embodiments and vice versa. Forsimplicity, the following description is made assuming that theadvertiser computer system 10 and the sponsor computer system 30 bothhave architectures consistent with the block diagram described inFIG. 1. If this type of architecture is implemented, it should beunderstood that the advertiser computer system 10 ultimately controlshow these audio advertisements are presented to the user (e.g., whichaudio advertisements, at what frequency, etc.). It should be appreciatedthat the alternative architectural embodiment described above may alsobe implemented, where the sponsor computer system 40 ultimately controlshow these audio advertisements are presented to the user, withoutcompromising the scope and spirit of the invention.

In an embodiment of the invention, an advertiser computer system 10delivers customized audio advertisements to a user according to tendencydata stored within the visitor history database 17 for that particularuser. The tendency data includes topical measurements of a usersinformation interests. Various methods may be used to determine a user'stendencies, such as, for example, providing a form or Web page for theuser to designate topical areas of interest, analyzing the user'sdemographic and purchasing information to ascertain likely areas ofinterest, and analyzing a record or history of the user's prior queries.It may be particularly useful to rank user tendencies in priority order.For example, if tendencies are to be determined from a record of priorqueries, the tendencies could be ranked according to factors such as thefrequency with which the same or similar queries have been repeated, thenumber of related queries in a topical area, and the length of timesince the query was repeated. These and various other methods known inthe art may be used to determine a user's tendencies, and the inventionis not limited by the method that the determination is made.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart outlining the operation of advertisercomputer systems 10 according to a preferred embodiment of theinvention. This operation begins at step 100 when the advertisercomputer system 10 receives an HTTP request from the user computersystem 40. At step 105, the advertiser computer system 10 then deliversthe desired Web page to the user computer system 40. The user computersystem 40 is then identified by the advertiser computer system 10 atstep 110 in order to determine whether this particular user has aprevious history with the advertiser computer system 10 at step 115. Ifa previous history is indeed found at step 115, then the history filedescribing the tendencies of this particular user stored within thevisitor history database 17 is opened at step 130; otherwise, a historyfile for that particular user is generated at step 120. It should beappreciated that whenever a history file is generated, the tendencyinformation contained in this file may be based on numerous criteria.Such criteria may include the nature of the website as identified by theoperator of the website, the nature of the website as determined by ananalysis of the name, URL, content and keywords of the website, thenature of the website from which the user arrived at the advertiser'swebsite, or any other type of identifying information at the disposal ofthe advertiser computer system 10.

In an embodiment of the invention, the above-described criteria are usedto generate primary search strings at step 132. In particular, theprimary search strings generated at step 132 may be simple query stringsthat are used to ascertain information from the visitor history database17 using a conventional search engine 16. Such primary search stringsmay, for example, include “restaurants in city y”, which may result fromthe advertiser computer system 10 having detected that the user hadvisited a website describing a restaurant in city y prior to visitingthe advertisers website.

The procedure continues at step 134 with a search of an advertisementdatabase 19 being performed according to the search strings found atstep 132. Depending on the criteria desired by the advertiser computersystem 10, an internal weighting algorithm may be used to determinewhich returned search results best match the tendencies of the user asanticipated by the advertiser computer system 10. The advertisercomputer system 10 then selects only those search results receiving acriterion score above some predetermined threshold at step 135. It is tobe understood that different audio advertisements may be selected fordifferent users based on different criteria scores. For example, if auser links to an advertisers website pertaining to politics from awebsite pertaining to news, then the user may receive an audioadvertisement pertaining to breaking news about politics. If a differentuser links to this same advertiser's website from a website pertainingto taxes, then that user might receive an audio advertisement pertainingto a political candidate who advocates a cut in taxes.

In a similar embodiment, these searches may be expanded using aninternal search string database, containing sets of generic searchstrings that are typically associated with certain strings,simultaneously with the visitor history database 17 in order to generatesecondary search strings. In particular, the applications processor 12may be programmed to search for more specific search strings from withinthis search string database in an attempt to provide the user with anaudio advertisement that more accurately reflects the profile of theuser according to tendency data stored in the visitor history database17. The aforementioned search for “restaurants in city y”, for example,may thus include a search that is expanded to also include “hotels incity y” or “restaurants in city x”, where city x may be close inproximity to city y. Within the context of the flow chart illustrated inFIG. 2, these secondary search strings may be generated at step 132simultaneously with the previously described primary search strings. Theprimary and secondary search strings found at step 132 may then becombined and used to search through the advertisement database 19 atstep 134 followed by the selection of the appropriate audioadvertisements at step 135.

Once the appropriate audio advertisements have been selected at step135, the advertiser computer system 10 proceeds by downloading theseaudio files to the user computer system 40 at step 140 It should beappreciated that the download described here for step 140 does notnecessarily supersede the download of other content that the user isreceiving, but rather the audio file may be downloaded concurrently withother data, or before or after any or all of the other data that isrequested by the user computer system 40. In an alternative embodiment,audio files may be downloaded in conjunction with hyperlinkadvertisements in order to direct the user's attention to thesehyperlinks for the purpose of generating traffic on the advertiser'swebsite. In another embodiment, the loading of the audio file at step140 is independent of the Web page from where it originated. Within thisembodiment, an audio file will continue to be downloaded onto the usercomputer system 40 even if the user leaves the Web page before the audioadvertisement has begun to play. The method of initiating this downloadmay include the use of hidden frames, i-frames, pop-up windows, passivepop-up windows, or any other ways of creating a connection to the usersWeb browser 42 that would be maintained even if the user leaves the Webpage that initiated the download connection.

Returning to FIG. 2, the audio file downloaded at step 140 will play onthe user computer system 40 via the advertiser computer system 10 once asufficient amount of the file is delivered. This amount is determined atstep 145 according to user information ascertained at step 110, whichinformation may include the speed of the user's modem connection and thesize of the audio file being downloaded. If a sufficient amount of thefile is indeed loaded at step 145, then the audio tile is played at step150; otherwise, the advertiser computer system continues to download theaudio file at step 140. It should be appreciated that audioadvertisements run at step 150 may be produced, compressed, and playedin a variety of formats. Such formats may include flash or any othersuitable format that can automatically play audio on the user computersystem 40 without requiring that the user take any action to initiatethe audio play. It should be further appreciated that audioadvertisements are transmitted in a format such that a user computersystem 40 does not launch any new application or plug-in that wouldallow the user to control the audio flow of the advertisement.

In an alternative embodiment, participating websites in a computernetwork may also cross-promote other participating websites. Inparticular, websites within a network may receive credits forcross-promoting other participating websites using audio advertisements.Within such an embodiment, these credits may then be exchanged forrevenue, advertisement space, or any other type of compensation from thewebsite being cross-promoted. For example, once a participating websiteobtains a sufficient number of credits, those credits may be exchangedfor the right to run their own audio advertisement on the website beingcross-promoted. It should be appreciated that any audio advertisementspace not filled using these credits may be filled by audioadvertisements selected by, and displayed for the benefit of, the audioadvertisement network administrator (e.g., an advertisement solicitingwebmasters from non-participating websites to participate in the audioadvertisement network).

In general, however, the advertiser website responsible for providing auser with an audio advertisement is credited by the sponsor of thatadvertisement whenever a sponsor advertisement is played. In particular,the flow chart described in FIG. 2 continues at step 155 with anincrement of the counter 13 which directly reflects the number ofcredits a particular website should receive. It is to be understood thatthe audio advertisement network may permit websites to present userswith either a single audio advertisement per Web page, multiple audioadvertisements per Web page, a single audio advertisement per timeduration, or any combination of the above or similar criteria. It is tobe further understood that audio advertisements may be limited infrequency such that once a user has been presented with one or severalaudio advertisements in a given time period, the user may not bepresented with additional audio advertisements for a certain time.

Once an audio advertisement is played for a user, the user can eitherignore the advertisement or act on the advertisement at step 160. Suchresponses to an advertisement may include visiting the sponsor'swebsite, actively interacting with the sponsor's website, or evenpurchasing or otherwise completing the sponsor's desired objective onthe sponsors website. In another embodiment, audio advertisements arerun in conjunction with certain software applications that allow for theuser to access one or more sponsor Web pages with a single key stroke,mouse click, voice command or other input. In one such embodiment, anadvertiser computer system 10 may include certain software code withintheir website, such that when an audio advertisement is being played,the user's browser 42 will interpret certain inputs from the user'skeyboard at step 160 as a “shortcut” command to forward the user to theappropriate sponsors website. It is to be understood that anyappropriate input device may be similarly used, such as specific mousebuttons, specific mouse movements, specific voice commands or otherappropriate input devices, or any combination of the above. It is to befurther understood that advertisers may provide the aforementionedsoftware code directly within their Web page, or the sponsor may causesuch code to be embedded within the Web page, or any combination of theabove, or any other way of establishing the appropriate browser responseto the appropriate input may be used.

In another embodiment, the user may be introduced to several sponsors ina single audio advertisement or a combination of multiple successiveaudio advertisements. Within such embodiments, the user's input devicemay be empowered by the previously mentioned software code in such a waythat multiple input combinations may yield a plurality of differentresults, An embodiment of the invention may, for example, dictate thatthe actuation of a certain key on the keyboard will cause the user'sbrowser 42 to display another sponsor Web page. Certain keys orkeystrokes could similarly cause the users browser 42 to displaymultiple or all sponsors in one or more browser windows. It should beunderstood, however, that the keyboard is described in this embodimentfor explanatory purposes only, and that any appropriate input device maybe similarly used.

It should be further understood that the input used by the user todisplay one or more sponsor websites can either be preset by theadvertiser or can be dynamically sent to the advertiser from the sponsoronce the appropriate audio advertisement is selected, Some embodimentsmay be implemented in a manner such that the input device or devices areenabled only for a certain period of time (e.g., the duration of theaudio advertisement or any other pre-determined span of time). Inanother embodiment, keystroke inputs would serve as shortcuts toparticular sponsor websites only if the user's browser 42 does not haveinput fields that are active in a manner such that the user wouldotherwise provide input to those fields. Activation of these dormantinput fields, such as by a mouse click, would thereby disable anykeystroke shortcut to the sponsor website until no such input fieldsremained active. Once all these input fields are inactive, the keystrokeshortcuts may again be enabled.

Other embodiments of the present invention may also be implemented sothat certain user inputs that result in a shortcut to a sponsor'swebsite are encoded with a tracking code such that when the user arrivesat the sponsor's website, they arrive by way of an encoded URLcontaining full tracking code data pertaining to the user's present websession which may include the use of “cookies”. This tracking code maythen be read by the sponsor computer system 30, once a user links totheir website, in order to give appropriate credit to the advertiserfrom where the user was linked. Within such an embodiment, differenttracking codes may be issued to different advertisers, or to differentwebsites operated by the same advertiser. It should be noted, however,that although current tracking codes may readily identify both theadvertiser computer system 10 from where the user was linked and theparticular audio advertisement that was played, future tracking codesmay be encoded to include a greater amount of information that furtheridentifies the tendencies of that particular user.

It should also be noted that user inputs may include inputs of varyingdegrees of complexity. For example, a sponsor or advertiser mayestablish that the actuation of any single keystroke by the user wouldforward the user to the sponsor's website, or it may be established thatdifferent single or multiple keystrokes forward the user to differentWeb pages either within the sponsors website or some other participatingwebsite.

Returning to the flow chart illustrated in FIG. 2, the procedurecontinues at step 160 with the advertiser computer system 10 detectinghow the user responds to the audio advertisement being played. Inparticular, if the advertiser computer system 10 does indeed detect aninput from the user at step 160, then the appropriate response to thisinput is executed at step 162 followed by an update to that particularuser's file within the visitor history database 17 at step 165.Otherwise, the advertiser computer system 10 remains at step 160 andcontinues to sense whether the user has entered an input.

In another embodiment, a sponsor may desire that the user visit thesponsor's website or a portion of the advertisers website that isdisplayed to the user for the benefit of the sponsor. If the userresponds favorably to a particular audio advertisement within thisembodiment, a new audio advertisement may then be presented. This audioadvertisement may include the same, additional, or new material that iscustomized for users according to how they reacted to the previous audioadvertisement. For example, if a visitor to a political website ispresented with an audio advertisement pertaining to a politician whosupports a tax cut, and that user responds by visiting that politician'swebsite, then the audio advertisement that the user is presented withmight include an advertisement in which the politician elaborates onthe. details of his/her tax cut proposal. This audio advertisement mayfurther suggest additional actions on the part of the visitor, such asrequesting that the user visit another Web page within the website, orthe purchase of a product or service, or some other action. Continuingwith the present example, this second audio advertisement may concludewith an appeal to the user to subscribe to the politician's e-mail listto receive updates on his/her campaign. Similarly, the advertisement maysimply conclude with an appeal to support the candidate and to vote onelection day.

It should be appreciated that, in some embodiments, an unfavorable userresponse to an audio advertisement does not necessarily mean thatsimilar audio advertisements will not be presented to that particularuser. Referring to the prior example, if a user is presented with afirst audio advertisement for a politician advocating lower taxes, towhich the user does not respond, a second audio advertisement may thenbe presented for the same politician pertaining to that politician'sviews on education and suggesting that the user review his/her websitefor more details. The choice of the second and all future audioadvertisements may be based on any of the criteria used in selecting thefirst advertisement, as well as additional criteria-that may-have beenadded to visitor history database 17 since the selection of the firstadvertisement. It should be appreciated that a limit may also beimplemented, such that if the user does not respond to a pre-determinednumber of audio advertisements, then the user might be subjected to anew advertising campaign.

Similarly, if the user responds positively to any audio advertisement,but does not fully complete the sponsor's desired objectives, there maybe a different selection of audio advertisements presented to the userupon future visits to the advertisers website. For example, if a userfavorably responds to a sponsors advertisement on an advertisers websiteby linking to the sponsors website, but does not join the politician'smailing list, subsequent audio advertisements may include a messagereminding the user to assist in the election of the politician by addingthemselves to the politician's mailing list. Similarly, if suchsubsequent audio advertisements are successful in fulfilling thesponsor's desired objective, the user may then be presented with adifferent set of audio advertisements including a “welcome back” messagewhenever the user returns to the sponsor's website.

It should again be noted that the “tree” of audio advertisements fromwhich advertisements are presented may be based on a variety of factorsas described above, including the degree of successful interaction thateach individual user exhibits to each successive audio advertisementpresented by an advertiser, and the depth of the user's exposure to theaudio advertisement tree. It should therefore be appreciated that a userwho visits many advertiser websites as well as many other sponsorwebsites directly from those advertisement websites, but who rarely ornever completes the sponsors ultimate objective (e.g., subscribing tothe politician's mailing list in the example above), could continuouslybe presented with audio advertisements that are different from otherusers whose behavior is different.

Having thus described a preferred embodiment of a method and apparatusfor providing audio advertisements in a computer network, it should beapparent to those skilled in the art that certain advantages of thewithin system have been achieved. It should also be appreciated thatvarious modifications, adaptations, and alternative embodiments thereofmay be made within the scope and spirit of the present invention. Theinvention is further defined by the following claims.

1. A computing system comprising: one or more hardware processors configured to execute instructions; a computer readable storage medium holding instructions configured for execution by the one or more hardware processors in order to cause the computing system to: receive a request for a web page from a client computing device executing a client web browser; and in response to receiving the request, send a web object configured to cause the client web browser to playback at least a portion of an audio file on the client computing device in a manner that is not controllable by a user of the client computing device, wherein the audio file is selected based on one or more tendencies of the user.
 2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the web object is configured to not launch an application or a plug-in that allows the user to control playback of the audio file.
 3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the web object is configured to begin playback of the audio file in response to determining that a sufficient amount of the audio file has been received at the client computing device.
 4. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the computing system to: receive data from the client computing device that is usable to determine the one or more tendencies of the user.
 5. The computing system of claim 4, wherein the received data comprises data from one or more user-filled forms.
 6. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the one or more tendencies are based on at least responsiveness of the user to respective audio files previously provided to the user.
 7. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the computing system to: determine whether the user reacted positively to playback of the audio file; and in response to determining that the user reacted positively to playback of the audio file, selecting an additional audio file for playback to the user.
 8. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the determination of whether the user reacted positively to playback of the audio file is based on one or more of whether the user: ignored the audio file; visited a website associated with the audio file; interacted with the website associated with the audio file; or purchased a product on the website associated with the audio file.
 9. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the audio file and the additional audio file are associated with a common advertiser.
 10. The computing system of claim 1, wherein a provider of the web page is allotted one or more credits in response to providing the web object to the client computing device.
 11. The computing system of claim 10, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the computing system to: track a quantity of credits allotted to the provider of the web page, wherein the credits allotted to the provider of the web page may be used to purchase advertising on one or more other websites.
 12. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the web object is configured to associate an input device command with a navigation shortcut.
 13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the navigation shortcut comprises a link to a website associated with the audio file.
 14. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the navigation shortcut is active if the client web browser is in a first state and the navigation shortcut is inactive if the client web browser is in a second state.
 15. The computing system of claim 14, wherein the client web browser is in the second state in response to less than a predefined number of input fields being active in the client web browser.
 16. The computing system of claim 13, wherein the navigation shortcut comprises a tracking code.
 17. A computing system comprising: one or more hardware processors configured to execute instructions; a computer readable storage medium holding instructions configured for execution by the one or more hardware processors in order to cause the computing system to: receive a request for a web page from a client computing device executing a client web browser; determine, based at least on a time period since a user of the client computing device has been provided with an audio advertisement from the computing system, whether an audio advertisement should be provided to the user of the client computing device; and in response to determining that an audio advertisement should be provided to the user of the client computing device, send a web object configured to cause the client web browser to playback at least a portion of a selected audio advertisement on the client computing device.
 18. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the web object is configured to not launch an application or a plug-in that allows the user to control playback of the selected audio advertisement.
 19. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the selected audio advertisement is selected based on one or more tendencies of the user.
 20. A tangible computer readable medium having instructions encoded thereon, the instructions configured for execution by a computing system having one or more hardware processors in order to cause the computing system to perform operations comprising: receiving a request for a web page from a client computing device executing a client web browser; and in response to receiving the request, sending a web object configured to cause the client web browser to playback at least a portion of an audio file on the client computing device in a manner that is not controllable by a user of the client computing device, wherein the audio file is selected based on one or more tendencies of the user. 